Latecomer in Mayor Race Has Business Titans’ Buzz

Kenneth G. Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, has pledged his financial backing. Peter S. Kalikow, the real estate investor, has cut a big check. And James S. Tisch, the chief executive of the Loews Corporation, is on board.

Titans of New York City business are buzzing about the mayoral candidacy of Joseph J. Lhota, a former investment banker, Giuliani administration official and chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose Republican bid is built on his reputation as a skilled manager.

Mr. Langone, a prodigious Republican donor, is even entertaining the possibility of an independent political action committee, unbound by spending limits, devoted to electing Mr. Lhota. “All I know is that Joe is not going to want for money,” he said in an interview.

But as big-name donations begin to roll in to the campaign, Mr. Lhota is confronting a persistent question, even from his own supporters: Can a latecomer to the race raise enough money to overcome the financial might of a billionaire rival from within his party and the electoral advantages of a well-known Democrat?

As soon as Mr. Lhota jumped into the race, jolting a relatively tepid Republican field, the owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain, John A. Catsimatidis, officially declared his candidacy for the party’s nomination, vowing to dip into his own vast fortune, Bloomberg-style, to prevail. Mr. Lhota does not have such resources; aides say he is likely to participate in the city’s campaign finance program, which matches private donations with public funds for candidates who agree to abide by a strict spending cap.

“Joe has an uphill battle,” said Mr. Kalikow, a former owner of The New York Post. “I did tell him that.”

Mr. Kalikow, who said he admired Mr. Lhota’s decision to run for mayor, is a case in point: He has also donated to the Democratic mayoral campaign of William C. Thompson Jr., a former city comptroller, whom he called a “very good friend.”

Mr. Lhota’s résumé and his record in the business-friendly administration of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani make him a natural candidate of the city’s corporate and real estate crowds, long a reliable source of campaign contributions.

But Mr. Lhota’s Democratic rivals have made deep inroads with the city’s business community over the past four years, earning the good will — and campaign dollars — of many real estate and finance moguls.

In interviews, a dozen such executives expressed personal affection for Mr. Lhota but skepticism about his ability to win a general election. In the city, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one.

The executives contend that Mr. Lhota, who has never sought public office and has relatively low name recognition, will struggle to distinguish himself given the spending limits imposed by the campaign finance program.

“Republicans in New York only win under special circumstances,” said a major developer, who has spent time in city government, and insisted on anonymity to protect his relationship with the candidates. “I don’t know anything that helps Lhota. There’s no crisis. The city’s not broke or torn to pieces by rioting.”

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Joseph J. Lhota, a Republican candidate for mayor of New York.CreditMichael Appleton for The New York Times

Mr. Lhota’s biggest hurdle may be the support already claimed by the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, a Democrat who has quietly become a fund-raising powerhouse in the corporate corridors by working closely with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and by taking a moderate approach to legislation affecting businesses.

An analysis of campaign contributions from employees of about 100 of the city’s most politically active corporations and organizations shows that Ms. Quinn is by far the biggest recipient, commanding 67 percent of their donations in the current election cycle. (Some of the donations are carried over from 2009, when she considered a mayoral run but opted out.)

For instance, employees of the Related Companies, a major developer, have given $40,050 to her, dwarfing the employees’ $3,450 in contributions to the second-biggest recipient, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, another Democratic candidate.

Mr. Lhota recently spoke with top executives from Related, people told of the conversations said. But according to these people, the company’s leaders are loath to do anything that might alienate Ms. Quinn. She has even won the backing of several donors to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, who would seem to be ideological allies of Mr. Lhota. One of them, Ronald O. Perelman, the financier and chairman of Revlon, said Ms. Quinn and Mr. Bloomberg “made a great team.” He called her “tough, fair-minded and extremely competent.”

Another Romney donor, Randy L. Levine, the president of the Yankees, who served alongside Mr. Lhota as a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration, has given sizable contributions to both Ms. Quinn and Mr. Thompson, citing his longstanding relationship with them.

A Lhota spokeswoman said his fund-raising was “on schedule” but declined to discuss it in detail. The extent of his fund-raising will not be known until he files a required report with the city in mid-March.

The candidate’s advisers are adamant that he can raise enough money to prevail in a primary and the general election, pointing to his deep network of relationships with business leaders; his ties to Mr. Giuliani, who has pledged to tap into his network of donors; and the track record of his wife, Tamra Lhota, a former Giuliani fund-raiser.

During a recent talk to members of a Republican club in Brooklyn, however, Mr. Lhota suggested that his wife would not join the campaign in a formal capacity, playfully bemoaning the occupational hazards of working too closely with a spouse.

So far, Mr. Lhota is eschewing big fund-raising events that might count toward his spending limit. Instead, he is favoring a few smaller events at donors’ homes and encouraging supporters to give online. He plans to hire Tamara Hallisey, a fund-raiser for John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Still, Mr. Lhota’s backers are leaving open the possibility that an outside group might form to bolster his candidacy.

Mr. Langone, who raised millions of dollars for Mr. Romney, said, “I plan to do everything I can to help Joe Lhota get elected, as long as it’s ethical and as long as it’s legal.” He called Mr. Lhota “a superb manager.”

On Feb. 22, Mr. Langone and Mr. Lhota will host a breakfast at the Harvard Club that is expected to draw donors and fund-raisers. Many of those attending say Mr. Lhota is singularly qualified to lead the city in the post-Bloomberg era, when they predict an uneven economy will test the city’s finances and public worker unions will seek to exploit close ties to Democratic candidates.

“I worry a lot about the fiscal health of New York City,” said Mr. Tisch, the head of Loews and an invitee to the Lhota breakfast. “As I look around at the group of people running for mayor, the person I think has the best capacity of dealing with these issues is Joe.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a Republican candidate for New York City mayor. He is John A. Catsimatidis, not Catsimitidis.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article rendered incorrectly part of the name of the corporation where James S. Tisch works. It is the Loews Corporation, not Loew’s.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Republican’s Mayoral Bid Attracts Wealthy Donors, but High Hurdles Remain. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe